Intro to Accessibility
- Audience: All GLTHS staff, every role
- Purpose: The shared foundation before your role-specific training
- Outcome: You leave knowing what accessibility is, why it matters, and where to go next
Everyone starts here. Your role module covers the practical how-to.
What Accessibility Means
Making sure anyone can find, read, and use your content - even if they have a disability.
- Disability is broader than you might think
- Permanent: someone who is blind or deaf
- Temporary: a broken arm, recovering from eye surgery
- Situational: a loud cafeteria, a cracked phone screen, slow internet
- Examples you probably already use: captions while watching something on mute, zooming in on small text, automatic door openers
Accessibility is for everyone, eventually.
Who Benefits at GLTHS
- Students with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive disabilities
- Families reading school information on a phone in a noisy home
- Community members who rely on assistive technology
- Staff and colleagues with disabilities - seen and unseen
- And honestly, probably you, some day
Why It Matters
- It's the right thing to do - everyone at GLTHS deserves equal access to information
- It's expected of public schools - Title II of the ADA requires accessible digital content, and WCAG 2.1 AA is the standard we work toward
- It just makes our work better - clear structure and plain language helps everyone, with or without a disability
What Counts as Digital Content
- Documents and PDFs you create or share
- Slide decks and presentations
- Emails and newsletters
- The GLTHS website and any web posts
- Social media, images, and graphics you share online
- Videos and recorded meetings or announcements
If you make it, send it, or post it digitally - this applies to it.
The Big Idea in Plain Words
WCAG 2.1 AA is the standard for accessible digital content. It's built on four principles:
- Perceivable: people can see, hear, or read the content
- Operable: people can navigate and use it with any device or method
- Understandable: people can make sense of what they're reading
- Robust: it works reliably with assistive technology like screen readers
Eight Habits That Do Most of the Work
You don't need to know everything. Just these eight habits cover most of it:
- Clear headings: structure your docs so people can navigate, not just scroll
- Alt text: describe images so people who can't see them still get the information
- Color contrast: make sure text is readable, not just pretty
- Descriptive links: say where a link goes, not just "click here"
- Captions: add captions to any video you share
- Plain language: write so anyone can understand it on the first read
- Avoid scanned documents: scanned images can't be read by screen readers - share the original editable file
- Avoid merged cells in tables: merged cells break the structure screen readers use to navigate
It's a Habit, Not a Project
- You don't need to fix everything you've ever created overnight
- Small, consistent improvements add up
- Build it into how you already work - not as a separate step at the end
- Every accessible document you create from here on is a step forward
- You already do some of this - now you'll do it intentionally
Good accessibility is mostly just clear, thoughtful communication. You're already doing some of it.
What's Next
Choose the module for your role and open it from the StepStream home page:
- Administrators and Department Heads: compliance leadership, procurement, and organization-wide standards
- Secretaries and Administrative Staff: documents, forms, notices, emails, and meeting materials
- Teachers and Instructional Staff: lesson materials, handouts, assessments, slides, and LMS content
Questions or accessibility accommodation requests: accessibility@gltech.org